Something like 45 years ago I was a regular on a BBC Radio Scotland teenage current affairs programme called Sunday Club. It involved a panel about six school kids interviewing two or three of the country's news makers. One Sunday we were interviewing a Czech dissident. He started talking about a beating his son had been by the Czech secret police. Because of what of you were doing, we asked. "Oh, no," he replied. "I'm proud to say he asked for it." Few Scottish parents at the time would have been proud that their kid had got a kicking from the police. While most youngsters only appeared on the programme three or so times I did a lot more. I suspect that was because I wasn't the sort of kid my high school would have picked to represent them on the wireless.

I wonder how many British children died from suffocation in the 1960s and 70s after climbing into an abandoned fridge. Certainly there must have been enough that the government made a public education film warning kids to stay clear of fridges. Or was it telling adults to take the door of the fridge before illegally dumping it? We were also informed by the telly that if we did not use the underpass on the way home from buying New Shows our dads would almost run us down in his car and our grannies would be very perplexed. Was the kid or Charlie the cat who burned the house down by playing with matches? Or did Charlie talk the kid out of playing with the matches? I never did get to stagger around the country in an RAF boiler suit suffering from hypothermia. Downed RAF aircrew in the final stages of hypothermia were seldom seen on my street. I think the government perhaps maybe had some interesting ideas about the kind of lives most of the population were experiencing. New Shows, killer fridges, talking cats and hypothermia. They were obviously interesting but dangerous times.

I'll never forget the day that I didn't meet singer Elvis Costello. It was a Saturday in Lerwick. Most Saturday afternoons I would go for a couple of pints at the Thule Bar, down by the harbour, with my flatmate Lois. But that Saturday there was an old film I'd always wanted to see showing on Channel 4. So, I didn't go that Saturday. Lois was a long long time coming back. When he finally did get home it turned out he'd spent the afternoon boozing with pop star Elvis Costello. Costello and his then wife were on a cruise ship that had called in to Shetland to let the passengers stretch their legs. Costello didn't get further than the Thule on the quayside.  Lois said he was good guy and had promised to come back to Shetland and play. And lo and behold, he did come and play at that year's Shetland Folk Festival. Just him and his guitar. If he hadn't already been a star, you would have said he was going to one. He was bigger and broader than I'd expected, the TV made him look a bit scrawny. I can't remember the name of that film that was on Channel 4.

Yep, you read that correctly. When I was a kid a person could get hurt in a children's playground. And I don't mean from a junkie's needle through the foot. I think something we called The Cheese-cutter was the most dangerous piece of playground equipment. It was basically a heavy wood beam that swung back and forth. A bit like a medieval battering ram that you could sit on. Another kid, not paying attention, could walk into the path of the swinging beam and kerpow, a fractured skull. There was also something called The Witch's Hat, but I can't remember why we thought it was dangerous. And then there was all the gravel or Tarmac surfacing to fall headfirst onto from the slide or climbing frame. Nowadays the playground surfaces seem to be rubberised. Anyway, the good thing about the old fashioned playgrounds was the role they played in Natural Selection. Most of the kids who got hurt were doing something stupid. Maybe better out of the picture before their stupidity could kill someone else. Maybe best they were out of circulation before they were old enough to get a driving licence and their dangerous stupidity killed an innocent person.

When I was a reporter on Tyneside I lived in the Heaton area of Newcastle. But I worked in South Shields on the other side of the Tyne. I used to cover Hebburn Magistrates Court. I was surprised how many, going by their addresses, of my neighbours in Heaton showed up at Hebburn Mags charged with house breaking or theft in either Hebburn or Jarrow. It took me a while to work out why that was. Heaton was once home to a sprawling British Rail goods yard. It was pretty much closed by the time I moved to Newcastle. But the guys showing up at Hebburn Mags were from families who for generations made their living from stealing from the railway goods yard. When it closed, they had to spread their crime net wider. Our fridge broke down during a heat wave and we carried it and its contents into the backyard. Within 24 hours the gate had been forced and the fridge was stolen. I wonder if it gave off a cloud of toxic death spores when it was opened.